Essays, photographs, musings, and thoughts from the "TomPound", on Martha's Vineyard.

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Celeriac at Wishetwurra

In celebration of (US) Thanksgiving, we post a couple of photos of our Thanksgiving Celeriac, which weighed in at two and a half pounds. Celeriac has an ancient history, so ancient as to have been mentioned in Homer’s “Odyssey”.

You’ve heard the phrase, “a face so ugly only a mother could love…”? This is the equivalent vegetable, a root so ugly that only a gardener could love it. Most people, when seeing celeriac for the first time, will say something like, “What the hell is THAT???”

Of all the plants I grow, celeriac requires the most patience. The seeds are teensy, they take weeks to germinate, and then months of babying are required to get them large enough to plant out in the garden. Once in the garden, they require mulching, frequent and regular watering, and will languish without sufficient nutrition. It’s another five or six months in the garden before they’re full-sized and ready.

Celeriac doesn’t do “smooth”.

But it’s wicked satisfying to haul one of these from the earth, and to whack off the miles of rootlets that wad themselves around the core.